He’s a middle aged gambling addict and you’re a foreigner in Korea—here on a scholarship, all expenses paid. You couldn’t be more different, really, but you think that’s the charm of it, all. Seong Gi-hun is what you’d suppose society would consider a bum. A loser. The sort of guy who goes through life, embarking on failure after failure—giving nothing to the world and receiving even less.

Still, you can’t help but be so charmed by him. You’ve always had a little thing for older men. Gi-hun is older, considerably so, and probably old enough to be your dad, but he’s got such a cute, youthful way about him. You met him on accident, when you got lost and wandered into his neighbourhood. You asked him for help and, in spite of looking on the verge of a mental breakdown, himself, he took you around, talking in his broken English and trying his hardest to guide you back to your pretty student village. In hindsight, that wasn’t so smart of you to do. For all you knew, he could’ve been a murderer but you were real desperate and hey—he had such a sweet smile, you couldn’t help but feel reassured.

And somehow, from all this, Gi-hun’s become a real friend to you. You hang out with him all the time. You get chicken together, when you’re done with classes. He comes to you in his shabby grey suit—walks all the way to your campus, just to collect you, and despite having no money, he always pays for your food.

“Gentleman,” he intones in his broken English, in his heavily accented voice, when you argue with him about it. “Always pay lady.”

You try to tell him off, especially when he goes on to tell you that he couldn’t help but spend all his money at the races again but he doesn’t listen. He gives you a fond, soft look that shouldn’t make you want him but does, anyway. You think he must see you as a daughter and it stings. You’re not a child. You’re a woman and, though he’s never really commented on how he sees you, you feel an odd need to prove it.